Upon Yggdrasil
by KathainBowen
Summary: They tell him this is for his own good, for the knowledge he so craves, even as they take his eye, pierce his flesh, and bind him to the tree, that cursed tree to hang for nine days. It is, after all, what he asked for. -------- Major Rodney whump ahoy!


**UPON YGGDRASIL**

They tell him this is what he wanted. They assure him this is what he asked for. They tell him this is for his own good. They tell him all these things, murmuring soft reassurances and stroking his cheek in a cruel mockery of affection as they strap Rodney McKay down with wide bands and ancient, tanned leather that looks as though it could hold a wild elephant. They purr and fawn over him, their long fingers snaking over him as they whisper the false promises that this is, really, for the best in the long haul.

Rodney snarls and spits at them, lashing out with a thousand swears and insults that fall upon deaf ears. He cries out that they do not know who he is, how valued he is in Atlantis. They nod and tell him this is why they have chosen him. Rodney promises swift, bloody, and thorough retribution from both Ronon and Sheppard when - not _if __- _the warriors find him. They shush him, chiding him like a toddler having a petty sulk and petty his short hair. They insist that, in time, Rodney will come to understand and see it their way. In fact, they promise it, even as they take his left eye.

He screams until hoarse, until they have carved out his eye with the blackened blade and left him with only gaping, throbbing hollow of white-hot pain. His shrieks die to a ragged whisper for a voice, hissing through his teeth as he cries searing tears, sobbing convulsively against the straps that hold him in small, painful lurches. His tears marry with the hot blood streaming down his cheek. They do not tut his bellows of agony. Instead, they allow it, welcome it even as he cries until passing out.

When he awakens, there is motion about him to the side. The entire left side of his face feels heavy and swollen, thick and sickly. He can hardly crack open his right eye, but, still, he forces himself to do so. To his side, they are working about the tiny, spring fed well that rises from the rock below, holding something tenderly and closely in their palms, as a tiny, fragile bird. To his horror, though, it is his useless, stolen left eye cradled almost lovingly in their palms. They dip his eye in the well, releasing it to the dark waters below.

Rodney cracks his lips, but only a thin whisper escapes. "Please.... let me go...."

They ignore him and draw a ladle of water from the well, carrying it gingerly to his side, careful no to spill a drop. God, he is so thirsty, but he cannot drink _that _water, not after what they have added to it. They tip the edge of the smoothly polished wooden scoop to his lips and pour the arctic liquid down his throat. He gags and chokes on it, his stomach revolting against the saltiness that he knows stems from his own vitreous fluid. They stroke his throat and force the water down. He whimpers, his stomach clenching and clamping down on the water mixed with the blood, tears, and inner organic contents of his own eye.

They shush him once more, humming lullabies to his ears. Their voices alight as one, soothing and joining together, merging into a sinuous, soft melody. A distant part of his mind recognizes the tune, follows with them. They sing of a proud land and warriors great, of gods and monsters and demons, of a world that cannot exist and a tree that impossibly reaches to both Heaven and Hell.

"Sleep now," they sing as one.

His eyelid is so very heavy, and he is so very tired. The frigid water feels warm in his stomach, and everything blurs oddly. Rodney initially struggles against the lulling pull of sleep, but, in time, he does not fight anymore. He obeys the order, unable to resist. He lets his eye slip shut as the warm embrace of unconsciousness pulls him mercifully under once more.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

Rodney slowly surfaces and awakes without opening his eyes some time later to several alien hands manipulating his body with care. He moans as his muscles are moved by a will outside his own, as his head is lifted gently and replaced. Rodney has often complained of pain and injury, but nothing has ever compared to this... this horror.

His mind reels. These hands are tender and loving compared to the vile touches of the night before. These hands are caring and compassionate. They are lifting his shirt and peeling it away carefully, likely to check for wounds. Another set of hands swaddle a thick bandage about his head and over the vacant socket of his missing eye. His team has found him. Soon, they will have him safely home on Atlantis, and Carson will be giving him the good drugs that steal his mind and worry away into a dark, comforting place where he does not have to think about the eye that has been stolen from him so ruthlessly.

But, then, his heart skips a beat when he feels the hands tugging at his pants, pulling them off his legs. His remaining eye snaps open, and, to his renewed terror, he finds that he is surrounded by the others and not his team as he had hoped. They are taking him clothes from him, stripping him to his bare skin. He struggles against them, but his is so very weak, his body likely in shock, and is no match for their fresh strength.

They lift him up and draw him out from the cave that his been his torture cell and into the pale, watery, pre-dawn twilight. The air is still and heavy, laden with thick droplets. There is a stillness to the world as they hoist him through the encampment of ringed, tattered tents to the path that had brought Rodney to this awful place of pain and suffering. His bare feet drag against the ground, his toes scraping on the occasional pebble or rough shale of this mountains, forested world. He stares down at his toes as they shoulder his weight, studying the dirty little nubs of flesh as they skim the soft, damp loam beneath.

"RODNEY!"

He lifts his head at the sound of his name. Sheppard. He, Teyla, and Ronon are seated right where Rodney had left them the night before, beside a dying fire. Last night, they had been raucous and loud, celebrating an unnamed festival with the natives that had been declared in honor of the arrival of the Lanteans. They had been drinking and reveling, dancing in wild abandon. Now, however, the three were shackled and chained, their faces drawn, pale, and sweaty as though hung over. Their features were strained with concern upon seeing Rodney's battered, bloodied and ruined face.

"Rodney...." Sheppard whispers hesitantly before turning his anger on the unnamed natives hauling his friend along. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM?!?"

They do not answer. Rodney could have told Sheppard they wouldn't say anything. They have not said anything explanatory to Rodney since he introduced himself as a scholar and scientist of sorts to them.

"Rodney...." Sheppard breathes fearfully. "Rodney, just hang on. We're going to get you out of this. I promise."

Rodney wants to believe, wants to answer with a snide comment about how they certainly are taking their time with their rescue mission, about how he is not interested in the timing of a dramatic entrance. His voice, however, does not allow it. There is nothing left to his overly abused throat at the moment for the kind of idly banter and conversation that has gotten him through so many other jams in Pegasus. He nods slowly at them as they pass without saying anything. Sheppard and Ronon continue to shout and bark even after Rodney has been taken far past them, until the stillness of the mountain morning swallows even their booming voices.

They take him down the trail towards the stargate before veering off into the woods perhaps a half mile from the ring and the blessed salvation of Atlantis. The trip seems to take so much longer, but Rodney knows this is just because he craves home so much. When they turn him away from the path to the gate, Rodney trembles and whimpers, soft sobs escaping his lips.

They take him up to the top of a gently cresting hill blanketed by a soft, waving grass, lush and verdant in the predawn light. Its silver trunk reaches up to the heavens, splitting into a thousand sturdy branches and, from that, into countless twigs. The green leaves spread wide overhead into a cool canopy, casting an emerald light between them. It is an impossibly ancient and improbably tall tree, towering over them and dwarfing even the tall natives that hold Rodney so tightly. Rodney shivers at the sight of this silvery tree in the gentle glow before dawn.

They take his weight up, into the tree, perching upon a thick branch. Rodney twists against them, but they hold him tight. They wrap him with ancient seeming ropes that _should _really just break apart, but these ties do not. The ropes smell mellow and damp, like old moss. They cradle Rodney's weight and hug close to his body, tickling him with frayed strands where the thick braids caress his naked form. He struggles, pulling weakly against the hands that hold him until their task is complete. The natives step back and shimmy down the tree once more, allowing the ropes to take up Rodney's weight.

There is a small ceremony and a tiny knife is produced. Rodney recognizes the blade from his own tacvest and survival supplies. They stab at the air about him with his own knife, about his head and body. He cringes and twists from the motion, but the ropes hold Rodney tight. They pray and whisper in a strange, alien tongue that he cannot understand. And, then, their pierce his side. He cries out, a strangled sound caught in his throat as hot blood courses down his side.

And, then, after all this pomp and circumstance, the natives exchange silent nods and leave him there, in the tree, retreating down the path through the woods and back to the village.

When dawn breaks, Rodney fights and pulls against the ropes. He jerks at his arms and wriggles, attempting to build up enough sweat to slip through the rope. However, for all his efforts, the ties hold impossibly tighter to him, clinging tight to his body. Ronon would likely have been impressed and possibly green with envy before cutting Rodney down. He twists and writhes as the sun climbs higher and higher in the sky between the branches of the mighty tree until Rodney hangs limply once more, his energy reserves spent.

In the midday, when he has regained enough of the use of his voice, he screams. He shrieks and cries out for help. He calls to Teyla. He bellows for John. He shouts for Ronon. He pleads with the natives that have abandoned him to the wild for them to cut back and let him down. God, how he just wants to see them walking up the hill for him, anyone, even the natives, come to take him down from the tree. He has never felt so alone in his life, so abandoned to the wilds, and it terrifies him to no end. Rodney screams and screams until his voice abandons him, his throat worn raw and hoarse once more, this time seemingly for good.

It does not matter if he cannot shout for them. They will find him. Rodney knows this, as much as he knows the subtle function of gate protocol and Atlantis's many systems. He holds tight to this knowledge. They will find him. They always do. And, then, they will take Rodney down from that cursed tree and bring him back home. Teyla will stroke his face and hair. Ronon will carry Rodney close to his chest, and John will dial up the gate immediately, hold his hand as they wait for word from Atlantis that the shield has been dropped. He clutches to the thought as fragile as it may be and it keeps him, carries him lovingly through the long, wordless noon.

By the afternoon, he hurts, honestly hurts, in every inch of his body. His stomach aches, hungry and hollowed, growling and begging to be sated loudly. His muscles burn from hanging in the tree. His throat feels dry and parched, exacerbated by the pointless cries through the mourning. His heart hammers in his head with each beat, drumming violently and agonizingly against his brain.

When the sun begins to set on the horizon, the world chills about him. Shivers play his body, sending fresh aches through his haggard, raw body. Rodney's teeth chatter in his mouth, no matter how hard he clenches his jaw against the involuntary muscle contractions. It is just his body's way of attempting to keep him warm by increasing blood flow. He knows this, as well as any hypochondriac should. It concerns him in the back of his mind, but not as much as the emptiness of the world about him.

In the darkness of the night, he embarrassingly loses control of his body and pisses himself. His cheeks flush in humiliation as the warmth trickles down his thigh before dripping from his toes and puddling beneath him in soft, pattering plops. For a sickening moment, Rodney is grateful, savoring the heat his own urine imparts to his frozen legs, but even that is a short lived relief. The liquid chills abruptly in a cold, cutting wind. Idly, he wonders if his team, his friends, will think when they find him half dead, hanging on a tree, and stinking of his own piss. No. Not him. Not the great Rodney McKay of all people brought to such a low.

It is a sad reminder that he is human, somewhere beneath it all.

He drifts off to fitful, fevered and dreamless sleep with that.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

The pale, blushing pink dawn is greeted by Rodney's fresh tears. They come slowly, leaking from his eyes without his bidding. They trickle warmly down his face in searing paths, seeping out from beneath the bandage about his left eye socket and down to his chin where they gather and fall.

His team, his friends, they have not come for him yet.

He has survived this long between his eye and the tree fueled only by the thought that they will come for him. Rodney has relied on them for so long for so much, and, now, they have left him to his own fate upon the tree. He wishes for Teyla's soft, composed faith in herself, in the universe around her, and the Ancestors that hold her close and keep her path safe. He longs for Ronon's strength, the muscles that would rip the ropes from right off his body with a simple flex. He hungers for John's athleticism, the lanky, flexible limbs that could snake their way from this trap, or, even better, legs that would have jerked up and snapped the necks of his captors _before _they left him to this death upon the tree. Rodney, however, has none of these skills or abilities. He is a weak, pathetic, sniveling creature that relies upon the strengths of others and the overblown boasting that her hides behind.

Now, stripped naked of all these trappings and his clothes, Rodney cannot help but see this, and it both saddens and frightens him. He is alone on this tree, and he is going to die here.

He slips away to sleep and dreams once more.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

The shadows watch over Rodney from the trees and the forests at the base of the rounded hill. They are Death, and he is their prey, so effectively staked out for them. The shadows stalk him, waiting for Rodney to draw his last breath. They ache as he aches, cry as he cries. They watch him with impatience. In time, however, the shadows turn away from him and retreat to the forests once more. He wonders if they will come for him soon.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

The rain wakes Rodney next. He is not certain what time of day it is considering the overcast nature. Perhaps he has slept through the night and into the next morning. He cannot be sure. His brain throbs within his skull with each beat of his heart and every tiny contemplation of the time. His tongue feels abruptly swollen and cottony, far too large for his mouth, and his body trembles with cold chills.

_"Dehydration, hypoglycemia_," he acknowledges in the back of his mind.

Rodney tilts his head weakly back and opens his mouth to catch the rain. The leaves seem to catch and guide the heavy droplets down, steering the water and carefully threading it between the thick network of branches to his mouth. Rodney lets the first, deliciously cool and wet droplets soak onto his tongue. The water dances into his mouth, slipping down his throat and soothing the fire of his aching vocal chords from yesterday's shouting. The chill spreads from his face through the bandages to the empty, barren and likely infected socket of his left eye. Rodney allows all this, catching as much rain as possible and swallowing hard, his throat struggling to work. He licks his dried, cracked lips and soaks up the rain. He savors the rain, the water washing away his blood, tears, and piss from before. In no time at all, his empty stomach feels uncomfortably full and bloated. He belches slightly, shifting in the ancient, weathered ropes, and sagging back into the binding's secure grip.

There, he dangles in the chill. The wind caresses his skin, wrapping about him and racing down his naked spine. He is cold and aching, from his skin to deep within his core. Even his balls contract and draw painfully close to his body in ward against the icy cold. Hypothermia cannot be far off.

Rodney has been a hypochondriac by nature, often envisioning himself dying in a variety of means, often grotesque and painful. He has never before been so acutely face with mortality to accurately view the possibilities. Here, on the tree, where death is a certainly, Rodney's options have become limited down to a few possibilities with great odds against him. Hypothermia. Dehydration. Suffocation in the same manner as crucifixion. Infection and illness from the mutilated eye. Bleeding to death from the stab wound at his side. Starvation. Exposure. All quite likely candidates with high probabilities of occurrence.

Rodney snorts to himself. And here he has been afraid of simple citrus products his whole life.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

When the rains stop and night enfolds him once more in her dark embrace, Rodney no longer thirsts or hungers. A distant part of his notes this with an odd dispassion. It is his shutting down, focusing his energy and survival efforts to critical bodily functions such as respiration and circulation. It is somehow not important, though.

Nothing is important anymore, really, nothing that he has considering important in the past. His mind slips back and forth, sweeping over what has been his miserable existence in shame. How often has he craved with such an intense and capricious passion over something as pathetic and paltry as Jello or coffee? How often has he snapped and fumed over the petty things about him, simple, common mistakes made by his colleagues and lab assistants? How many Christmases and birthdays has he missed to sit over his experiments or compose grandiose letters debunking the work of his rivals?

It all seems a grand, stupid mistake for someone so supposedly genius to make.

He thinks of his sister and her husband, of his niece and his friends. He holds them close to his heart and pictures them as clearly and accurately as possible in his addled mind. They are the critical factors in his life, not some obscure number or vague unknown labeled '_x_' in an equation.

God, what a wasted life is his.

Rodney drifts back to sleep, hanging his head in both exhaustion and shame.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

There is a man hanging from a great tree on the hill. His body dangles and twists in the wind, but that is not the man. His soul is fused with the tree, entwined with the gnarled, ancient branches that cradle his physical body. He moves up and down through the tree along the xylem and phloem amid a liquid sea of water and glucose. He spreads out and touches the heaven with the branches. He reaches down and hunkers into the earth, digging in with his roots. He draws up the water from the earth and in the light from the sun in the sky.

There is a man who is both a man and a tree, and his name is Rodney McKay.

Rodney chuckles to himself, but it is a sad, pathetic and soulless sound. He is hallucinating. He knows this. It is the cold, the hunger, the hypoglycemia thundering against his temples and the thirst. He laughs, a silent, empty chortle. He _knows _he is hallucinating, but he does not care. Rodney drifts with the tree's circulatory system, curls up in the safe core of the pith. He abandons his body, leaving behind all the pain, all the agony and torture behind him. He _becomes _the tree.

Rodney shakes his head at himself. A man cannot be a tree, and, yet, he, quite simply and maddeningly enough _is_. It is as easy to know this, to mold into the tree about him and become the tree, as it is to draw breath. He ponders this for some time as the afternoon wears on once more without the blessed, chilling rain.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

Rodney sleep, then wakes. Wakes, then sleeps. It is an endless cycle of drifting between the merciful dark of unconsciousness and the horrible suffering of his conscious body. There is no reality anymore. His dreams and his real world have blurred together, merged and entwined into one, strange, Kafka-esque scape. There is only the naked Rodney and the tree in this agonizing pseudo-reality. He sleeps more.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

In the late afternoon, Rodney cracks open his right eye as much as possible. It is harder now to stay awake, to stay conscious and actively aware, but he forces himself to do so. Rodney has to. This is important.

Now, Rodney looks at the tree, really looks. There is something profoundly beautiful and intensely sad about this lonely tree standing atop the mighty hill by its lonesome. The bark has a silvery, metallic color to it in this light, shimmering strangely in the afternoon sun. The leaves bear the same sheen when the light hits them just right. It is a strong, mighty tree with a thick, sturdy trunk and heavy buttressing at the base. There is a power to this tree, something secret. This tree has stood the test of several thousand years. It is perhaps the oldest living thing on this world. Rodney is weak and mortal, with a fragile body compared to this great tree. And, long after Rodney is gone, the tree will remain.

Rodney slumps against the ropes, so very tired. It won't be long now.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

When Rodney opens his eyes next, it is night. He does not know what happened to the day, but it is dark now. A dappled sky blanketed by the infinite twinkling lights of Pegasus spreads overhead. He has never looked at the Pegasus sky before with anything other than a passing interest. Now, those beautiful, dazzling stars hold him transfixed. It is so utterly gorgeous, perhaps the most painfully beautiful and seductive thing he has ever seen.

He feels no cold now. On the contrary, Rodney feels quite warm and flush, comfortable even. He coughs, a hacking, debilitating sound that rattles in his lungs. It is harder to breath now. Each inhalation is difficult and unsatisfying, accompanied by a sad, wheezing sound. He is sick.

No.

He is _dying._

The shadows seem closer now, encroaching on his field of vision and scaling up the tree with him. He has been watching them draw close and recede upon his eyes for some time now, getting progressively nearer each night. They are upon him now, hungering for him. He sighs to himself as the shadows draw close to him and hold him tight.

It is done.

It is over.

Rodney knows this and understands this as implicitly as he does the technology of the Ancients.

_He _is over.

And, surprisingly, after all this, Rodney welcomes the end and the peace it heralds.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

There is a great and proud tree at the top of the hill, growing in defiance of the howling wind and raging storms of this world. It stands empty and lonely once more.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

At dawn on the ninth day, the natives come to their bound captives, shouting and whooping in delight, celebrating even harder than they had that first night. When Sheppard demands to know what is going on, one of them explains that the tree is empty, that their sacrifice has been accepted by the All-Father. Sheppard demands a better explanation, and they slowly, carefully outline their plan to bring Rodney closer to the All-Father, extending the knowledge of life and death by placing him on the same path as their god. They were merely assistants in Rodney's journey, which, upon this, the ninth day, had been completed so thoroughly and so pleasingly to their gods, that Rodney had been taken up from the tree. The natives do not understand John's sorrow and anger, for they have given this scholar the knowledge he craves, the most important knowledge possible. Why should the visitors be so angry and disheartened?

Sheppard scowls and argues that Rodney had only wanted to know how such a primitive world had been kept so safe from the Wraith. In truth, he has been amazed by this world himself. This world is shielded from the Wraith and even the scanners the Lanteans brought with them. Rodney had merely been curious, intrigued by this puzzle. He hadn't asked for anything.

Upon hearing of Rodney's death, John curls up on the hard packed dirt floor and dies a little inside. To his side, he hears Ronon and Teyla murmuring something consoling, but he has not the heart to listen to their words. He feels Teyla's hand upon his shoulder, but John simply turns away and shrugs her touch off. Rodney is not a warrior or soldier like them. It was their job to protect him.

They have failed him miserably.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

In the dark of the night, Sheppard jolts awake with a start to a gentle shaking of his shoulder. A stranger sits over him, a child covered in angular tattoos and flanked by two, gleaming, ebony ravens with bright, sharp eyes. The little presses a finger to Sheppard's lips and another to his own, indicating the need for silence. He furrows his brow but concedes to this child, rising slowly and testing arms and legs no longer bound by thick chains. He turns to his side, to Teyla and Ronon, each being similarly roused by their own tattooed child bearing twin ravens upon their narrow shoulders. Ronon shoots Sheppard a raise of his eyebrow in question, but the colonel just shrugs.

The children take them by the hand and lead them out into the darkness of the camp. The tiny nest of circled tents is illuminated only by the slowly dying embers of the fires. An eerie, orange glow is cast by those slowly suffocating fires, sending tall, creepy shadows drifting over the tents. The natives are sprawled here and there, drunk and passed out where they fell. Ronon moves to one, his hands outstretched to snap the native's neck, but the tattooed child wordlessly stops the Satedan in his tracks with a curt shake of the head. They cannot risk waking so many in the middle of the camp.

The children wordlessly lead the wearer travelers from the camp and into the dark of the forests. Their ravens take to the sky, circling overhead and keeping watchful, beady eyes upon the children. They slink down the path easily, leading their charges towards the stargate and the salvation beyond.

In the back of John's mind, he slowly begins to turn over how he shall announce McKay's death upon their return to Atlantis. He isn't good at this. He never has been. And, worse, Rodney's death has no justification, no reason and definitely no silver lining. Rodney has died without need, without any benefit. He has given his life for what? For nothing. John could just crawl into bed and die himself at the thought, cursing these natives for taking Rodney and not him. John sighs heavily at the thought.

When they are close to the gate, the children point to another path, leading away from the gate and into the forest. Sheppard raises his brow and opens his mouth to question or argue, but the tattooed children merely point once more and dart away, vanishing into the shadows and the night.

Sheppard shrugs and takes point, Teyla and Ronon following closely at his heels. Up they climb through the soft, mellow forests. The shadows shift and move about them unsettlingly. John wishes he had some heavy firearms to defend them. Behind him, Ronon reaches down and takes up a thick fallen branch as his own weapon. John spies no other such branch that would serve in a fight as anything more than a pathetic, laughable little twig.

Up they climb to a rounded, weathered hill, to the base of a grand, far reaching tree, the tallest tree Sheppard has ever seen in his life, even having visited the mighty red woods. Beneath the tree sits an old man in his cloak, staring down at the ground, scattering small pebbles with strange markings upon them. Those markings are the same as the blue tattoos upon the children, as the tattoos that Sheppard notes mark this man. He bears a long, white beard below his hat, looking less and less like one of the common natives and more and more like Gandalf or some other mighty wizard. Sheppard feels.... humbled in his presence. The old man gestures for them to sit with him as he casts the stones once more and gathers them in his wrinkled, old hands.

"You going to tell me what this is all about, because my patience is just a little thin right now," Sheppard barks harshly.

The old man chuckles and shakes his head without lifting his eyes. "You're just like him, you know? So young, so impetuous. A little rude and rough around the edges."

"What are you talking about?" Sheppard growls.

The old man lifts his head and reveals his missing left eye, the socket long vacant and empty, raising his hand to the tree at his back. "This is my tree, did you know? The tree of every great keeper of this world, every man, woman, and child who has kept the Wraith at bay." He looks up and closes his one eye solemnly. "Each one of us has hung from the tree for nine days. No more. No less."

Sheppard tightens his fist. "Rodney..."

"-Is not meant for this world of ours," the stranger answers slowly, carefully. "His place was never upon this tree."

"What have you done with his body?" the colonel demands angrily through tightened teeth.

"He is waiting for you at the gate," the man says cryptically, scattering the stones once more before bagging them up and handing them to Sheppard. He frowns at the colonel, his lips turning down. "His path.... is no longer what it once was."

Sheppard does not ask more. He does not care. He only wants to get Rodney's body and get back to Atlantis, maybe hit a belt or two off of Radek's still. He fumes as he stomps down the trail, Teyla and Ronon hot on his heels and the strange old man still seated at the base of that weirdly ancient tree. It is time to leave this sad, sick world and all the depraved, mad people in it. He just wants to go home, to take Rodney home after all this insanity.

At the base of the gate, they find Rodney. His body is just as marked with tattoos as the children and that old man under the tree. Sheppard has never seen Rodney so.... so still.... so silent and calm. Rodney is a creature of action and motion, never pausing, never slowing down. Such stillness seems a sin in Rodney. Sheppard says nothing, motioning with a tiny wave for Ronon to take him up as the colonel dials for home.

Ronon freezes as soon as he lifts Rodney's body close to his face. His brow scrunches together, illuminated by the pale blue of the shimmering event horizon the silhouettes him. Ronon blinks in surprise, the color draining from his face as he tilts an ear to Rodney's mouth and nose.

"He's breathing...." Ronon jumps in fright. "He's alive!"

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

Rodney spends a week unconscious in the infirmary. Carson tells them it is to be expected of someone in his condition. Sheppard never leaves his side for a moment, not any of it. He does not even return to his quarters to sleep. For once, Carson does not cluck for him to leave or eat. No, he watches in silence as Sheppard keeps vigil and listlessly pokes food into his mouth without actually tasting it. The Scot notes the little leather satchel in Sheppard's hand, the contents rattling oddly inside. Occasionally, he spies Sheppard spilling the contents into his hand, rolling the little things about in his palm before returning them to the pouch. As none of this disturbs Rodney, Carson ignores it.

As the week draws to a close, Rodney slowly begins to surface. It starts in tiny glimmers of motion, small sounds and whimpers. His coming back is marked in small progress as he drifts back and forth between dreams and something bordering consciousness. Carson has said it is unlikely, granted the extent of the damage to his vocal chords, that he will not be speaking much, if any, when he wakes.

Rodney comes to fully, it is late, the infirmary darkened. His hand twitches, the fingers curling and uncurling experimentally, the motion riveting John's attention. He cracks his one eye open slowly, as though pained. John edges closer, his eyes scanning up and down the limp body for any other signs of life. In time, he is rewarded when that singular, blue eye opens fully and focuses on him.

"Hey," Sheppard breathes.

Rodney opens his mouth to say something, likely a greeting or snarky comment, but nothing comes out. John pats his shoulder to shush him and brings Rodney a small cup of cool, clear water. He lifts Rodney gently by the neck and holds the cup to his lips. For an odd moment, Rodney's eye flicker suspiciously between the cup and Sheppard, as though suspecting something some poison, but, in time, he accepts the water, gulping it down gratefully.

John talks to him until Rodney sleeps once more, mentioning the daily goings on of the city and bringing Rodney back up to date on the most recent gossip. Rodney seems to listen as he drifts, but John cannot be certain.

In fact, when Rodney awakens again in the morning, John is still not certain if Rodney can hear them at all. The once bright and swift physicist sits with a passive look upon his face. His single eye sweeps slowly, contemplatively over the room. He does not even attempt to communicate. It frightens Sheppard and Carson so that the doctor orders an immediate neuro and psych exam.

Rodney spends another two weeks in the infirmary under close scrutiny. Sheppard visits daily, watching with a heavy heart as Rodney moves about painfully slowly and in his own, distant world from the city. Rodney has come home, yes, but as a vacant, marked body. Rodney occasionally pauses to study something, and, each time, Sheppard feels his heart trill as though his friend has come back to them. He will pore over an object with his one remaining eye, as though intensely studying the very essence of the object. The smoothness of the metal railings to his bed. The soft downiness to the blanket Teyla has given him. The odd gaps where the keys of a laptop bridge together. There is a curious study to his eyes, but nothing like the old Rodney McKay.

Each day breaks John's heart little by little.

When Rodney is released from the infirmary, Sheppard takes him to one of the balconies overlooking the vast sea. Rodney allows himself to be ferried along silently by his elbow. John sighs. The _old _Rodney would have never allowed this. John sits heavily beside Rodney, visibly sagging. How can they live with this.... this empty shell masquerading as the vibrant Rodney McKay?

He shakes his head. John knows he will not have to live with that worry long. Soon enough, the big whigs as the SGC and IOA will demand that Rodney be packed up and shipped back to Earth like defective parts. They will send a replacement. A newer model. A better model. Like Rodney is a car or a computer. The mere thought alone sends John into a blind rage, but he contains himself for Rodney's sake. Rodney needs their support, their affection; he does not need to see his friends so angry or depressed.

They stare out endlessly at the vast sea for some time, until the sun sinks low in the heavens, its swollen pink mass kissing the horizon.

Then, Rodney speaks slowly and awkwardly, as though unused to the English language that had once spilt so smoothly, so fluidly from his lips. "I was dead."

The words echo horribly in Sheppard's ear.

"Rodney...." he whispers hesitantly.

"You never came for me."

Sheppard blinks at that, more of a flat statement of fact than the accusation he knows it _should _come out as. "Rodney.... we tried.... they wouldn't.

"I died." The physicist shakes his head. "I was dead. I walked the path of hard truths. I saw...." He shivers and goes silent.

"What did you see?" Sheppard inquires fearfully, his voice cracking.

"I don't remember now." Rodney shakes his head. "I was dead..... but you brought me back. And now...." He looks sadly to his hands, to the blue tattooing that covers his arms and the flesh hidden beneath his cloths. "Now, I don't know what I am anymore."

"It's okay...." Sheppard breathes, unsure of what precise _to _say. He wraps his arms about his friend, holding his close. "We'll figure it out. Together."

Sheppard holds Rodney close for some time until Rodney stills and sleeps once more.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

After that twilight on the balcony, Rodney slowly comes out of his shell, piece by piece and bit by bit. Tiny glimmers of the once proud and great scientist come out in small steps. Sheppard and the others remain vigilant not to overly praise Rodney for his progress. Rodney has never appreciated being treated with such infantile emotion and kit gloves. However, they cannot help but feel a sigh of relief as Rodney returns to them over the months and even that first, horrid conversation on the balcony fades from memory.

In time, the seasons turn, and life on Atlantis returns to a relative normalcy.

Rodney, however, never fully does, despite returning to his work in the labs eventually, as though nothing has happened. There are moments when he becomes so lost in his thought, so engrossed by the simple wonders of everyday physics, that Sheppard and Carson often fear for permanent brain damage. He is quiet, saving his speech for only the most necessary of conveyance. There is a calculated distance to Rodney, as though he keeps Sheppard and the others at a distance. Sometimes, when Sheppard sees that one eye upon him, he can feel Rodney staring through him, boring right down to the very core. His stare both burns and freezes, and it frightens John and anyone else who falls under that magical, frozen gaze.

They each see something, however, lurking in the shadowed hollow where Rodney's left eye once resided. When John sees the empty socket, he feels only the pain of his failure, of knowing Rodney was so brutally mutilated and tortured on his watch. When Teyla spies it, she sees her blind impulsion and trust leading them to the events that nearly killed Rodney. When Ronon looks upon it, the Satedan sees only his failure as a warrior, as a protector, bowing his head in shame. However, when Rodney looks at them through his remaining eye, he sees more than mere friends and the sacrifices they have made. He sees only family, welcoming and warm.

Rodney and the team grow close though, with time, and dialogues flow considerably more normally between them. There is only a slight awkwardness remaining between them that blurs more and more as time goes on. The only thing Rodney does not talk about is his time on the tree. John understands. Sheppard never liked anyone to bring up his own failures, his own tortures. It is an unspoken rule of decorum. He does not bring up that world and the horrors Rodney endured.

Life goes on anew.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

It is not until a year after his time on the tree that Rodney returns to traveling off world. It is awkward, and timid, but it works. Sheppard keeps a closer eye on the physicist than ever before. He will not have a repeat of the last time they went off world. Neither Sheppard nor Ronon eat anything offered by any native no matter how well they know them when Rodney is traveling off world with them. Neither can stomach the food when their eyes are so fixed on Rodney.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

"WRAITH INBOUND!"

The words thunder through the command center of Atlantis. Sheppard and Rodney have heard them a thousand times before, and will hear them a hundred times over again before their time in Pegasus is said and done. However, this time, their ZPM is drained, burnt on by the abuse of getting the city back running again and fending off the Wraith so many times before. They are sitting ducks in the middle of the sea. Sheppard moves on autopilot as the shields fail all around him and the city trembles, crying out in the back of his mind in acute distress. He is bolting for the chair.

He stops dead in his tracks at the sight before him. "Rodney."

Rodney is there, standing in the center of the room. Somehow, that awful tree is, too, shimmering within him, silver branches reaching up and out from deep within. A tiny, strange smile spreads across his face. He looks genuinely happy for the first time in blue tattoos seem to shine and crawl over Rodney's skin, moving as though live things. He tips his head back and allows the tree to spread forth from within in a blinding, radiant light, blanketing the city in warmth. A thin stream of blood trickles from Rodney's nose.

"RODNEY!"

As soon as it has started, it is over. The light fades, and the Wraith are..... they are simply gone, their ship torn apart from within and sprinkled across the heavens in green, glittering ruin. Rodney collapses boneless-ly to the ground in an jumbled heap.

"RODNEY!"

Sheppard runs to the side of his friend in terror, unsure of what to do for him. Rodney lies so very still, barely drawing breath. He presses his long fingers into Rodney's neck, feeling for a pulse and thankfully finding one.

"MEDICAL EMERGENCY!" Sheppard bellows into his radio. Rodney groans beneath Sheppard, and the colonel starts, gripping him tight and begging, "Hang on, Rodney."

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

Rodney calmly, willingly, and silently endures the barrage of tests that all come up with the same, inconclusive results. He feels no different, and Carson's obsessive poking and prodding reveals he is just as healthy as before. But he sees it in Sheppard's eyes. The fear, the worry. _Something _is different about him. They no longer speak openly in front of him. They are _frightened _by him. Rodney endures their worried stares and hushed whispers as well.

They scan him and review him, but he knows they will find nothing wrong with him. He knows this with the same certainty as Chaya did, but he will never tell, not ever. He feels it in him with the same, cool grace that Daniel did after his own Ascension. Rodney tells them it was Atlantis, calling to him, answering his needs with one last burst of energy.

Rodney smirks to himself when they finally release him from the infirmary once more, rubbing the tattoos upon his arms gently. He joins Sheppard in the hall. They joke and tease, and everything seems so very normal for a moment, so painfully like the past. For a moment, the illusion is enough to make Rodney smile in earnest. He has not felt this good since that moment he died upon that tree awash the dark of the night and the bright, blinding light of the world and the others who came to take him up with them.

Sheppard asks him if everything's alright, if there is anything he'd like to tell the colonel. For a moment, Rodney almost does. Rodney has been remembering things, small, fleeting glimpses of his time upon the tree and the lifetime that spanned in the milliseconds following his actual cardiac arrest. He wants to, oh, he wants to, but he cannot find it in him to do so. No. He will never tell. That is the promise Rodney made when he turned his back on that splendid, shining world and came back down to reality. That is his solemn oath to the other Ascended when he gave that up once again for the last time, no matter how it hurt to spurn such a glorious, beautiful gift of immortality.

Sheppard puts his arm around Rodney, laughing about the dismal choice for movie night, and Rodney smiles. It had been hard, so very hard to give it all up, but, somehow, seeing Sheppard's face, spying Teyla snuggling up with Torren John, and watching Ronon is more than enough to remind him of the many reasons he came back from the tree, the promised knowledge he has gained from the tree.

The tree and his time upon it has taught him many things. He sees things now, unfolding before him. He knows what is to become of John, Teyla, and Ronon, as well as the rest of the city. It is not a pretty end. In fact, Rodney knows he can only stave off the Wraith for so long by himself. It is why the Ascended so rarely interact directly with the mortal plain. He has learnt so much about them, the paths they are to walk on, and the awful fates awaiting them at the conclusion of those paths. The other Ascended had told him this is his Gift from the tree, from his own rise. He has seen their demise, and the sorrow of it remains seared into Rodney's hear and mind. He cannot look at their faces without seeing their deaths, and it is this dark knowledge that has severed him so strangely from the others, distanced him so.

But they are alive and well for now, and that is enough for him.

**xxx**

**xxxxx**

**xxx**

**Author's Notes : **I've been in a weirdly one-shot mood the last couple of days. This little ditty is inspired vaguely by _American Gods_. My brother just returned my copy. So, yeah. Finding the strength within and all that good stuff.

Sorry if it was so emo and weird.

But, yeah.

So, now that another new drabble is out there..... any takers for sequels of a post-Ascencion Rodney coming back with weird secret powers, etc? Be my guest if you are so inclined!


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